The team at Sun behind OpenSolaris has unleashed OpenSolaris 2009.06 upon the world. This new release comes packed with new features, changes, improvements, and fixes, and is the first release of OpenSolaris for SPARC, adding support for UltraSPARC T1, T2 (Sun4v), and UltraSPARC II, III and IV (Sun4u). Read on for some of the improvements that stand out.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Hmmmmmmm, no, sorry.
For starters, this thread was about security updates to an existing installation rather than going through another installation to get them, and we've established that OpenSolaris fails on that which I said any Linux distribution worth its salt could do - you totally misread that because of your idiotic red mist. That's why I specifically said that backports were a 'different kettle of fish' which you missed completely.
Besides, even the list of backported new applications that you think proves your non-existent point is still quite pathetic, but I digress. Linux distributors aren't great at backports but there is more on offer generally than here.
I can get frequent updates from free Linux distributions. Why should I be using OpenSolaris again?
I'm afraid wriggling won't help you over this. The fact is that there are a ton of critical security updates that should have been made available to OpenSolaris users to upgrade in their existing installations which haven't been. Calling it 'stable' is neither here nor there. Saying that you can get potential free updates from somewhere else is so stupid it isn't even funny. As I'd said, any Linux distribution worth its salt can do this.
Errrrrrrrrrrrr, the point being that no one should have to upgrade their entire installation to get security updates and no one has to.
Less of the red mist, eh?
Member since:2009-02-28
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It was mentioned ....
"Errrrrrrrrrrrr, the point being that no one should have to upgrade their entire installation to get security updates and no one has to."
Says who ?
A Linux user or an (Open)Solaris user ?
OpenSolaris is not Linux, but a real UNIX.
Linux is not OpenSolaris, but a unix-clone.
The two are different and that is abundantly obvious.
OpenSolaris patching/updates/upgrades/what-ever are confined within a new "boot environment" that can be activated on reboot of system. This way, if the upgrade is erroneous (e.g. from the source) then a rollback can occur and so the system is not comprised. See, if you have not figured it out yet, OpenSolaris gives you a fallback scenario. What's Linux's solution after a stuffed up upgrade/patching and no way to uninstall the erroneous software. I have experienced a failed Linux upgrade and it is not a pleasant experience especially when (unlike OpenSolaris) you cannot "flip a switch" and revert the system to a previous state. Also, these boot environments are lightweight/optimised. Even upgrading an entire installation (if need be) is a trivial task with ZFS/BootEnvironment/Rollback/etc framework.
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Do not forget that Linux' number of years being in the "wild" are much greater than the relatively new OpenSolaris codebase. As such, some of your concerns related to OpenSolaris' update-ability may be related this difference. Then again, if needs be, this is something that should be able to get fixed as the OpenSolaris community is a vibrant one.
Also, remember that the OpenSolaris codebase represents the amalgamation of many innovative technologies that have been open sourced and that other operating systems (including Linux) are cloning these innovative technologies.
As such, the OpenSolaris community also devotes it's time to trend-setting innovation and I am thankful that this sort of innovation still exists. Since this this innovative detail is able to be pumped out by the OpenSolaris community then I would think that the upgrade-related issues you mentioned would eventually be sorted out (if need be).
Member since:
2008-06-09
There are a few backports, mostly of unbundled products for 2008.11. There was not a single security update.
Here is a complete list of changes to the 2008.11 branch since November 2008:
* xvm was added
* xvm-gui was added
* storage-server updated
* amp-dev was updated twice
* webstackui was updated twice
* opends was added
* sunstudioexpress was updated
(source: http://pkg.opensolaris.org/release/feed )
The 2008.11 branch has accumulated quite a number of serious security vulnerabilities during that time period (see http://blogs.sun.com/security/category/alerts ). The more serious ones include e.g. Firefox, OpenSSL, and ipfilter. If you make claims, please back them up.
segedunum was there to spread more Anti-Sun FUD was claiming Sun lacks the ability to do back ports which apparently any linux distribution can do . The packages you listed are backports so my point stands.
The bottom line is you can run the /dev an be current or wait 6 months to get current if you want free updates. If your business is that critical then you pay to get more frequent security updates in between the 6 month release schedule.
The dev branch is very stable for home users. I have been running it for a few months and have updated bi-weekly whenever the pkg manager notifies me.
If the update to the dev branch fails going back is as simple as typing one beadm command and rebooting.
Running OpenSolaris doesn't leave you without avenues for free security updates. The original claim is not entirely true.
Upgrading to the latest release is painless. pkg image-update and you are done. It clones the entire root file system so if you go back to the previous boot environment ever single block that was changed by the update is reverted to the pre update state.No linux distribution offers that like ZFS can.
OpenSolaris 2008.05,.11 and 2009.06 are still snv builds so they aren't fundamentally different from one another. The SunOS version is still 5.11. It is in active development. The development and release model is not like linux distribution. I admit it is confusing.
Edited 2009-06-03 16:15 UTC